Weekly Weather: A blessed cool front ends the warmest summer on record in the United States

Welcome to your weekly weather update, in which I’ll attempt to sum up the immediate past, present and future of weather on the bayou. This week, amazingly, will see cool nights. Not so amazingly, alas, is that both the days and nights will continue to be extremely dry.

PAST

Wow.

Have you stepped outside this morning? It’s almost enough to make one forget how brutal this summer was. Almost.

Before we get to the forecast, let’s take one final look at just how ridiculously warm this summer (as defined by June through August) was for Texas and Oklahoma.

The warmest summer on record for any state, in any year, was set by Oklahoma in 1934. That came during the heart of the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression. The average temperature was 85.2 degrees.

Fast forward to today: We’re not in a depression, but we just came out of a bad recession and there are fears we’re heading back into a second one. And we’re in the midst of another historic drought, although it hasn’t lasted nearly so long yet as some droughts past including the Dust Bowl.

In any case, both Texas and Oklahoma are going to obliterate the heat record set in 1934.

Although the statewide average temperatures won’t come out for another day or so, unofficially Victor Murphy with the National Weather Service tells me Texas is likely to end the summer with an average temperature of 86.7 degrees, and Oklahoma with an average temperature of 86.8 degrees.

The following table lists some of the larger cities on the southern plains that have set or nearly set temperature records this summer.

Click to enlarge. (Southern Region HQ/National Weather Service)

Murphy tells me of the statewide temperatures for Texas and Oklahoma:

It is very likely that the official NCDC values will differ from these by perhaps 0.1 to 0.3 degrees F. However, at the end of the day, the screaming message remains that each state will have exceed a 117-year summertime high temperature record by 1 to 1.5 degrees F.

So yes, you lived through something historic this summer in Texas. And yes, that first cool front of the fall, which has come about two weeks earlier than normal, is a real godsend.

Anyway, let’s do the numbers for last week.

Date

High T

Low T

Average

Departure

Rainfall

Monday

107

75

91

+7

0.00

Tuesday

102

76

89

+5

0.00

Wednesday

101

75

88

+5

0.00

Thursday

102

77

90

+7

0.00

Friday

102

78

90

+7

0.00

Saturday

96

75

86

+3

0.05

Sunday

89

75

82

-1

Trace

Average

99.9

75.9

87.9

+4.7

0.05

PRESENT

This week’s weather will be much cooler, with daytime highs around 90, rising to the low 90s by the weekend. Overnight lows should remain in the low to mid-60s until the the weekend, when they’re forecast to rise into the mid- to upper 60s.

The reason for these pleasant temperatures, say forecasters with the Houston/Galveston office of the National Weather Service, is a steady northerly wind that will prevent the warm, moist onshore flow from the Gulf Mexico from returning until late this weekend.

Importantly for wildfires near Houston and near Austin, the strong winds that developed from Tropical Storm Lee this weekend have died down, and winds should remain at modest levels for most of this week.

Unfortunately, there will be little relief from the skies, with dry conditions expected to persist into at least early next week. In fact, some long-range models don’t show a chance of rain returning to Houston until the weekend of Sept. 17.

This map from the North American Ensemble Forecast System tells the sad truth of things. It shows the probability of a certain area getting 1 inch or more of rainfall, total, between now and Sept. 20:

(NAEFS)

It’s not a good story for Texas.

FUTURE

To begin with, let’s take a look at the tailgate weather for next Sunday’s Texans-Colts football game, which kicks off at noon. For early September it looks surprisingly good.

Now bear in mind this is a six-day forecast, but at the moment temperatures are predicted to rise from around 70 degrees at 8 a.m. to the upper 80s by kick-off, with a slight northerly wind. Humidity is forecast to be low under mostly sunny skies.

All in all, it should be great weather to kick the Colts back to Indy.

Taking a broader view, let’s look into the tropics as we enter what is historically the busiest time of the year for tropical activity. And they are busy indeed.

In the satellite photo below you can see that major Hurricane Katia has developed a large eye as it moves northwest across the open Atlantic Ocean.

Satellite photo from early this morning. (NexSat, NRL/JPSS)

Fortunately it now appears very likely that Katia will curve to the north, and then the northeast well before reaching the United States. The track models are in good agreement on this and the biggest threat is to Bermuda.

But wait, there’s more.

Tropical weather outlook. (National Hurricane Center)

Deeper in the tropics there’s Invest 95L about 700 miles west of the Cape Verde Islands (marked at “1” above), which should become a tropical storm or depression during the next couple of days. It’s very difficult to say with any confidence, but right now it does not look like this system will track toward the Gulf of Mexico, but it could threaten the Caribbean Islands and Florida or the East Coast of the United States next week.

Then there’s another disturbance in the Bay of Campeche (marked as “2”) that some models develop into a tropical system this week.

The models are all over the place with this system, which could get dragged southwest into Mexico, or eventually pulled toward the northeast, perhaps making a landfall in Florida. It’s something to also watch during the next several days, but it appears the high pressure settling into place over Texas will keep the storm away from the greater Houston area.

SUMMARY

This week’s scale goes from 0 to 44, the number of no.1 singles recorded by George Strait. He’s sold 70 million records.

My number: 32.

FINE PRINT

As always, thank you to the fine professionals at the National Weather Service for the information and data that make this weekly blog entry possible. Also, bear in mind there’s always uncertainty in weather forecasting, particularly the timing and intensity of precipitation.